First of all I want to say I LOVE ALLNURSES!!! It has been the best resource for me for so many things.
Sadly, I have noticed in the last year or so that there are more and more negative postings. Some OP’s will post innocent topics and get torn a new one for nothing. Why?
We should be encouraging one another and not be putting people down. The saying "nurses eat their young"….I once thought it was not true, but I am beginning to think it is.
I am not trying to pinpoint nurses who have been in the field for many years; however, I have noticed many negative comments come from people who have forgotten what it was like to start out as a nurse. Other comments that are nasty I figure are from people who just have low self esteem and want to tear someone apart to feel better.
Maybe the economy is just taking a toll on people? Whatever it is I hate to see it. I love Allnurses. I would hate to see it become a negative place where people can’t share their thoughts without the fear of ridicule.
Nurses are one of the most oppressed groups of people. Perhaps there is negativity because this is one of the few safe outlets to vent the frustrations of the profession.
I don't see too many people "getting torn a new one", but I see quite a few OPs getting mad, when people disagree with them, and are less than fully supportive of inappropriate actions.
It is not supportive or appropriate to give carte blanche to all actions. Yet, there are some people that will scream "too negative", or "eating our Young" when we do not carte blanche agree and act warm and fuzzy over some seriously poor actions.
Guess what, we are not the helicopter parents, who hovered to make sure no one hurts their little one. We are not the grade school teacher that has to give out "participation" awards so no one's feelings get hurt.
When you are dealing with life and death, being "extra sensitive" to another's feelings, when a coworker is about to make deadly mistake....gets pts killed. I have personally seen pts seriously harmed when a nurse that should have been kicked to the curb, continued to practice dangerously....."because she is soooo nice" and "I don't want to hurt her feelings".
And I have seen people on the BB attempt to be so darn tactful and pleasant in disagreement, that OP just doesn't "get it". There are some posters that are so stubborn, that one would have to hit them over the head with the metaphoric brick bat for them to "get it". And then they scream "eating our young".
This forum is not anything special in terms of prevailing negativity. I read a lot of forums, be it guns, sports, technology, medical, etc. People are people and just because we are nurses does not mean we are all saints who get into this profession to help people because it was a special calling from above.
Its human nature and some people get more annoyed by certain threads, some people have less patience, some people always like to be right, some people think they are God, some people dislike student nurses. It is what it is. If you don't like the thread, just ignore and you don't have to always comment.
Specializes in PICU, NICU, L&D, Public Health, Hospice.
Honestly, given the divisive, partisan, argumentative climate of the USA at this moment I am not surprised that posts might seem a wee bit more negative...
This seems to cycle. I've been here awhile and it seems like it goes through fazes. In January, I stopped coming here because it was so very negative, then in June I started checking the site and it seemed less negative, now in August, it has become more negative again.
I suspect that certain people come here and flame until they get it out of their system, then they must leave. I'll stick it out this time. This time, I probably won't post in threads where those negative people post, eventually, they will either get it off their chests or leave. I wondered if maybe the moderators had made some of those nurses leave, but they probably left on thier own.
My advice to you: wait it out, it will probably improve again. :redpinkhe
PS. I love nursing and am one of those "fluffy" nurses who thinks nursing is a "higher calling". I consider nursing to be a service to God and man. Please don't flame me.
Specializes in PACU, LTC, Med-Surg, Telemetry, Psych.
This seems to cycle. I've been here awhile and it seems like it goes through fazes. In January, I stopped coming here because it was so very negative, then in June I started checking the site and it seemed less negative, now in August, it has become more negative again.
I suspect that certain people come here and flame until they get it out of their system, then they must leave. I'll stick it out this time. This time, I probably won't post in threads where those negative people post, eventually, they will either get it off their chests or leave. I wondered if maybe the moderators had made some of those nurses leave, but they probably left on thier own.
My advice to you: wait it out, it will probably improve again. :redpinkhe
PS. I love nursing and am one of those "fluffy" nurses who thinks nursing is a "higher calling". I consider nursing to be a service to God and man. Please don't flame me.
Good observation.
I think most of the negativity during the months of January and late summer is because Nurse Managers typically fire right after Christmas or during summer when census gets low. (at least in my area)
I've noticed more and more OP's being torn to shreds too. But, what gets me is the Staff. Some staff members will close "heated" topics but leave others still open. The ones that are left open have postings that are down right nasty and I've seen people leave posts begging for a moderator to close the thread, and nothing.
I've been watching where most staff tend to respond to threads and they are lurking in the General Nursing Discussion forum. To Staff: please lurk in other forums, such as Pre-nursing student forum.
first of all i want to say i love allnurses!!! it has been the best resource for me for so many things.
sadly, i have noticed in the last year or so that there are more and more negative postings. some op's will post innocent topics and get torn a new one for nothing. why? we should be encouraging one another and not be putting people down. the saying "nurses eat their young"....i once thought it was not true, but i am beginning to think it is. i am not trying to pinpoint nurses who have been in the field for many years; however, i have noticed many negative comments come from people who have forgotten what it was like to start out as a nurse. other comments that are nasty i figure are from people who just have low self esteem and want to tear someone apart to feel better. maybe the economy is just taking a toll on people? whatever it is i hate to see it. i love allnurses. i would hate to see it become a negative place where people can't share their thoughts without the fear of ridicule.
it's a stupid saying and so over-used imho
it doesn't seem any more 'negative' since when i joined back in 2004. also, bear in mind that not all posters on this site are nurses. seems like most are students or wannabes.
I've been watching where most staff tend to respond to threads and they are lurking in the General Nursing Discussion forum. To Staff: please lurk in other forums, such as Pre-nursing student forum.
Use the report button if you feel there's trouble. That's what it's there for.
First of all I want to say I LOVE ALLNURSES!!! It has been the best resource for me for so many things.
Sadly, I have noticed in the last year or so that there are more and more negative postings. Some OP's will post innocent topics and get torn a new one for nothing. Why? We should be encouraging one another and not be putting people down. The saying "nurses eat their young"....I once thought it was not true, but I am beginning to think it is. I am not trying to pinpoint nurses who have been in the field for many years; however, I have noticed many negative comments come from people who have forgotten what it was like to start out as a nurse. Other comments that are nasty I figure are from people who just have low self esteem and want to tear someone apart to feel better. Maybe the economy is just taking a toll on people? Whatever it is I hate to see it. I love Allnurses. I would hate to see it become a negative place where people can't share their thoughts without the fear of ridicule.
Ok so call me crazy, but I have noticed the negativity too and I have only been using this site for about two weeks now. I have personally been berated several times for post I have made and I was just stating my opinion which is what someone asked for. I also was ridiculed for the school I chose to attend because I was told that I did not have to go through all the other bull-crap that other nursing students go through. I chose a college where my acceptance into the program was guaranteed, and because I did not have to take my pre-reqs before entering the the nursing program, I was told that it was not a legit education, like I did not have the sense to check to make sure that the school is a legit school. I do have to take the same pre-reqs that other RN's have to take I just am guaranteed to get into the nursing classes as soon as my pre-reqs are done. I have found several really good and really helpful post or I would have stopped logging into this site. I have experience with forums and yes this one is milder than some, but rather a person makes a negative post or not they should not be berated about it as long as they are not talking about another person. What I mean by that is that if someone wants to come on this site and complain about a bad day or a hard time that they are having, why should we condemn them for it? Let them make their post if it makes them feel better. I mean if you don't want to read it do like I do and skip over it, do not be mean to them and tell them to basically get over it. I do not mind the negative post about there not being any jobs, or post about someones bad day in clinicals or bad day on the job, what concerns me is that other members are so mean to these OPs that it makes me scare to post anything. After all it is still America and we do still have freedom of speech, and though that also goes for those people making the post condemning a person for something they wrote, it is just not nice to be that cruel to someone on purpose. It is amazing to me how cruel people can be that in a profession that claims to want to help people.
I say Nah, just a poor work environment with a poor hiring status with short staffing which again will change in time. I've been doing this 15 years and it always hits this circle.
The difference is that the economy took such a hit, there are an exponential amount of "wanna be's" out there trolling whom are irritating the life out of REAL NURSES ON A NURSING BOARD.
Because there are so many of these ill informed altruistic people that have no clue as what the real job is, those of us that are that, do that and live that are sick and tired of the ill informed lectures on how we should think, feel, dress and to the point of puking.
I think we are whole as nurses here, the others have made it very difficult to vent, relax and have fun. I vote for requiring a nursing license # to join and all others have at the other forms.
UnionRN2
56 Posts
Nurses are one of the most oppressed groups of people. Perhaps there is negativity because this is one of the few safe outlets to vent the frustrations of the profession.